How popular is too popular?

When the new list came out, I was a little saddened by the rising popularity of some of my favorite names. Violet is now in the top 100, and Cora, Hazel, Alice, and Ivy are in the 100-200 range. In the end, I know we will choose a name we love regardless of popularity... But popularity does influence how apt I am to actually go with that name. The popularity list is not necessarily a reflection of how popular a certain name is within a specific community, too. Take Willa for example. It is by *no means* a popular name according to the SSA list, but I know three (three!!!) Willa's in my area alone. What if we choose a name that doesn't seem very popular, only for it to turn out for another to be in the same class as my kiddo?

I'm probably worrying about this too much. Regardless of the name, there is no garuntee that my kid will be the only bearer of his/her name in our community. Honestly, I don't mind if there are one or two other kids with the same name. But three? That's pushing it.

So I guess my question to you is this: how popular is too popular for you? Does popularity change the way you feel about a name?

I think it just depends on how much of a priority it is. I hated sharing my name (Taylor) even though I only knew like 2 people with it growing up. Because of that, I prefer legitimate names that have a long history of use but that have never been popular. Almost all are out of the top 1000.

That said, it doesn't bother everyone like it does me. I'm sad that Lillian and Lily are so common because I always wanted to use that to honor my great grandmother with whom I was very close. For me, the popularity is too much even for that.

Also, for some reason, names ranked around 300 or more for boys don't bother me but that is way too popular when I consider girl names.

Oh and if a celebrity uses a name, that instantly makes me hesitant, even if it's not super popular. Clementine is a bit of an issue for me because of that, even though I love it.

I think something to keep in mind is how many children were actually given that name. Just because it's a name is high on the list doesn't necesarily mean 10,000 girls were given that name. Violet is at #89 but only 3,252 girls were given that name. That's 3,252 of roughly 403,000 girls born in the US in 2012. So, if you named a girl Violet, she might meet a few others in her lifetime but I would think it'd be unlikely that she'd always have to go by her last innitial. My name was at #22 in the year I was born and became increasingly popular afterwards. I can only recall a handfull of other Alyssas that I've met. Only twice have I been in class with girls with similar sounding names but they were both Elissas. I don't think top 100 would be too popular, especially if you really love a name. In the 100-200 range would certainly not be overdone. If you happen to know a lot of girls with an uncommon name, it might just be that it's popular in your area (SSA lets you check a name's popularity by state as well). It might also mean that you hang out with a bunch of hipsters, lol.

I try to avoid top 20 names for my area. I also try to avoid names that feel more popular than they are because of their similarity to other names that are popular. For example names that have Bella/Ella in them, I try to avoid because they feel overdone to me. For example, Mirabelle and Arabella, they are not very common, but they feel like they are, to me anyways.

I don't mind classics that are popular/common. It is the trendy names that pop out of nowhere and become major hits that I dislike.